The alarm went off this morning and it was still dark!!! Diamond Hunting Day is FINALLY here and it is raining cats and dogs sideways. Like good scouts, Gene and I came prepared with rain tarps, hoodies, rubber boots, and thick socks – we hit the furrowed rows with our buckets, diggers and strainers, and went at it like crazy for 4 hours. Needless to say, I am now paralyzed! There was enough rain water to sluice right out in the middle of the field. We splashed and got all muddy – our hair was flattened down by our hats and hoodies, but we...

It does not rain today. After breakfast in town, we head to the Crater of Diamonds State Park.
We visit the museum. There are samples of what we should look for. We see pictures of the bigger diamonds that have been found here.
We head downstairs. We watch a video on how to wet sift for diamonds. We rent our equipment. We are ready.
The diamond crater is huge. There are many people here but plenty of room for all. It becomes obvious that a lot of luck is needed to find a diamond.
We pick a spot. They have recently plowed the fields. We dig...

Our RV Park is new. It is part of a casino complex. The restrooms are very high end! Nonetheless, since we are not here to gamble, we move on.
We travel east across Oklahoma. We parallel the Red River that is the Texas border. Slowly, the terrain is getting greener. We cross the creeks and the rivers that run south into the Red River. They have water in them!
We cross into Arkansas. Our destination is Craters of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, AR. The weather is not good. Today it is overcast and we see some rain. It may rain...

Well, I never thought we'd spend a couple of days playing in mud and dirty water looking for diamonds - but we did. We wanted to stay in an Arkansas State Park before leaving the state and Rog found the Crater of Diamonds State Park on our route to Texas. This is more than just a campground, it's a real diamond field in Arkansas. The field is 37 1/2-acres. It's the eroded surface of an ancient volcanic crater that 100 million years ago brought the diamonds and some semi-precious stones to the surface when the volcano erupted. We didn't find...

We arrived at Crater of Diamonds State Park on October 3.
I have never worked so hard for so little return in my life. We spent 2 days digging for diamonds and never found anything. We were joking with some of the people up at the sluice pavilions. Someone had said that the state had done an assay on a small section of the mine field and determined that they would never run out of diamonds. We said that this was true because no one ever found any diamonds.
To find diamonds here you have to be either extremely lucky or work extremely hard...

We drove to Murfreesboro, AR, to join a group of Rotarians for a rally at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. This large plowed piece of ground is there for anyone who wants to search for diamonds. We've been there twice and have never found anything. Someone finds a diamond almost daily - some as big as eight carats, but not us. The state park has a beautiful campground. The rally was great fun and playing in the dirt is always fun. While we were there, we went with friends to Historic Washington State Park. This is a treasure of a place to...

We came here to dig for diamonds. When we first arrived we were walking in this lady behind us hollered "excuse me ma'am". I asked are you speaking to me? She said yes and that they were here with a group of girl scouts and two of the girls had to cancel at the last minute. If I didn't mind I could join their group so we could get the group discount.
I said sure. We ended up getting into the park for free because the group discount was way cheaper than the individual price. We also went through a class in which Ian was taught how to...

We arrived at Crater of Diamonds State Park today and intend to dig for diamonds while we are here, however, it has been raining on and off so don't know when that will be.
Crater of Diamonds State Park is situated over an eroded lamproite volcanic pipe. The park is open to the public and you are allowed to dig for diamonds and other gemstones and you can keep what you can carry out. More than 600 diamonds are found each year of all colors and grades. We'd like to be one of the lucky ones who comes home with a diamond! The area that you...

In Arkansas, is the only place in the U.S. (maybe even the world), where you can search for diamonds and, if you find one, you can keep it. Lots of diamonds have been taken out of the open field. On the day we were there, none were found, but one had been found the day before. Some are even large and some are perfect gem stones. Well, we weren't lucky. It would have been great to have been one of the fortunate ones, but we didn't see anything that sparkled. Maybe another time.

We made it here! The kids really wanted to come here after seeing a kind of "treasure hunters" show on TV at one point in time. This park was really great! What another great geological find!
This was a great state park, nice and clean, and we weren't the only ones parked here! A bit of diamonds helps in this area.
This park had a great visitor's center and great interpretive programs. We learned a lot about the geology of this area and why there are so many diamonds here. (In a nutshell, after being formed 3.5 Billion years ago deep in...

We arrived at Pete's on Friday, the 15th of March and spent the next 3 nights at the Hidden Cove Campground, Lewisville Lake. On Tuesday morning we all loaded into the RV and headed to Diamond Crater, AR to dig for diamonds.
The weather was not good for traveling, rain was coming down in buckets. We had flood warnings all around us. The band of storms followed us all the way to Arkansas and finally finished up that night. We missed the campground entrance due to the heavy rain and approaching darkness. We had to continue on for 12 miles...

Last night we dealt with wind speeds of 24 mph. In a house that doesn't sound like much, but in a motor home you can feel it! It was rockin! I only was only able to sleep after I checked the weather for Tornados. Bob of course thought I was crazy, so he slept fine.
Today we spent the day at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. It is located about 60 miles southwest of Hot Springs. The Crater of Diamonds was the only diamond mine operated in the US. It is actually the 8th largest in the world. About 1,000 diamonds are found there each year....